Force India against sudden qualifying u-turn

Through its team principal Bob Fernley, Force India has emerged as a dissenting voice in the debate in favour of scrapping Formula 1's new qualifying format and returning to the sport's old system.

Following a meeting of team bosses last Sunday morning in Melbourne after the previous day's botched Q3 session, it was decided that the Strategy Group and F1 Commission would decide, through a unanimous vote, the fate of the new elimination-based quali format.

Pirelli's Paul Hembery, who will be a party to the vote, is currently on the sidelines with regard to returning to the previous scheme.

But Force India appears to have joined the tyre manufacturer against any rash or sudden decisions.

"When you are making a decision where the end result was to influence the race, how the hell can you make the decision to abandon it before you have had the race?" Fernley told Autosport.

"That was my argument on Sunday, and I still feel that now."

Fernley admitted his team had not voted on Sunday morning for the u-turn, believing another should perhaps be given to the new system.

"We didn't vote for it [to be changed back]. I asked for it to be noted that we were strictly against it on principle and time should be given for it.

"I hope that more people will take our position with a bit of time to think about it. The tyres, the qualifying, everything had an impact on this race. Maybe we should wait a little bit more.

"You should not have a knee-jerk reaction. You should let the process go through, and then step back in the calm light of day, pick out what was good and say can we use that?

"Do we need to tweak a few areas? Did we get something terribly wrong? You can address all of them, you don't have to throw the baby out with the bath water."

Despite Force India's stance, Fernley insisted his team would not stand in the way of change should it prove harmful to F1.

"Force India is not going to do something that is detrimental to Formula 1," he said.

"It will fight like hell for fatigues in the system but it won't do something detrimental if it is in the best interest and everybody feels that way.

"We were not necessarily against [making a change] but making a decision without time to reflect on what had gone on."

Australian Grand Prix - Quotes of the weekend

Australian Grand Prix - Driver ratings

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